The invention relates to a pelvic and scapular bone plate implant and a surgical method for implanting such a pelvic or, alternatively, a scapular bone plate implant.
Surgical methods are known for reconstructing a patient's anatomy after a bone fracture. These procedures rely on the surgeon's use of metallic plates or meshes which are screwed to a fractured bone in order to reset comminuted areas of the fractured bone. These plates may carry the load of the comminuted area of the bone. Due to the rigidity of the plate, the fractured bone can heal in the proper position, because motion is minimized. These strong plates must usually be contoured to the surface shape of the bone. An example for a fixation plate is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,454,876 which discloses a pelvic fixation plate and method of implanting the same. Also see the Matta Pelvic System sold by Stryker® Corporation. However, with the plates from the state of the art, especially with plates for larger surfaces, it can be very challenging to bend the plate correctly with respect to the anatomical region. A pressure on an inside shape can be achieved by contouring the plate beyond the bending extent required for the plate to touch the bone surface in that area, but it is very difficult for a surgeon to adjust the slope and this can lead to a suboptimal fit along the outer edges.
The quadrilateral surface of the pelvis is often affected by high impact pelvic fractures, because the femoral head is driven from the acetabulum through the quadrilateral surface towards the inner pelvis. This results in a comminuted fracture of the quadrilateral surface. Especially since the center of this wall between inner pelvis and acetabulum is very thin and has to be buttressed in order to re-establish the acetabular surface. However, under consideration of the above difficulties encountered when forming the known plates, there is potential for improvement in plates for buttressing contoured large-area bones.
A deformable pelvic/scapular plate is shown in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0226279, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.